Letterman, the Monday After: You Still Watching (If You Ever Did)?

Today, David Letterman tapes his first Late Show since his revelation, prompted by an extortion attempt, that he’d had sexual relationships with female employees over the years. The post I put up the morning after that drew plenty of opinions about Dave’s behavior.

What I’m curious about, though, after the news has had a weekend to sink in, is your behavior. If you watched Letterman regularly or semiregularly before, do you plan to keep watching now?

What I’ve seen so far is that people’s reactions seemed largely determined by what they already thought of Letterman: the loudest critics seemed to be those who didn’t like him to begin with, for his run-in with Sarah Palin or other reasons.

In a TV Barn podcast, Aaron Barnhart argues that a number of viewers have been turned off from Letterman over the years because of his politics, or his perceived politics. On the other hand, Barnhart also begins his commentary by noting that Letterman was just coming off his best ratings performance in years, so it’s hard to prove that his opinions have been a net liability. If people were turning away, plenty of people had to be turning toward him.

So I ask you, for yourself—not what you think other people will do—do Letterman’s revelations change the way you look at him, and do they make you any more or less likely to watch the show?